Former British Finance Minister Rishi Sunak accentuated, on Monday July 18, his lead in the race to succeed Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

With 115 votes from Conservative MPs, he came out on top in the third round of internal voting, according to the results announced by Graham Brady, the head of the organization.

Rishi Sunak is ahead of Secretary of State for International Trade Penny Mordaunt (82 votes) and Foreign Minister Liz Truss (71 votes) who are vying for second place to qualify for the final. 

Former Equality Secretary Kemi Badenoch came fourth with 58 votes, while Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Tugendhat was eliminated with 31 votes.

The last two rounds are scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday.

Then the two finalists will be decided by the 200,000 members of the party during a postal vote.

The identity of Boris Johnson's successor is expected to be announced on September 5.

A canceled debate

In the aftermath of a tense debate between these five candidates on Sunday evening, the Sky News channel announced on Monday the cancellation of the debate scheduled for Tuesday evening, due to the refusal of Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss to participate.

According to the channel's website, the prospect of a third live debate has Conservative MPs fearing that exposing the disagreements between the candidates will weaken the majority.

Sunday evening, the second debate of the campaign gave rise to more animated exchanges than the first.

The head of diplomacy, Liz Truss, attacked frontally from her first interventions her former colleague in the government Rishi Sunak, accusing him of having led the country into "recession" by increasing taxes when he was in charge of Finance.

"That's socialism," Rishi Sunak fired back.

"Even (former opposition leader) Jeremy Corbyn would not have gone so far!", He launched, thus returning a qualifier which had been attached to him by a faithful of Boris Johnson.

Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak have been at loggerheads since the start of the campaign.

The 46-year-old candidate is the darling of the Johnson camp, which is convinced that Rishi Sunak had been biding his time for months before stepping down on July 4, precipitating the Prime Minister's downfall.

What supporters of Rishi Sunak deny.

With AFP and Reuters

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